British rock duo The Alan Parsons Project have admittedly been on my radar since before I started this music blog. Of the three records I own, any song cropping up on shuffle would grab my attention. How its taken me this long is criminal but for the past month or so Ive gotten deep into I Robot, their sophomore effort. Hailed as Progressive Rock, what is remarkable about the music is how much it reaches into the adjacent sounds of the 70s. With a luscious string section, these compositions often get a graceful lift into the cinematic realm. Its rumbustious baselines hit Funk and Disco grooves with class. The short experimental interlude Nucleus enters the Ambient Soundscape realms akin to Dreamtime Return released eleven years later.
What they touch, turns to gold, but not without echos of others who walked before them. The breezy lullaby of Day After Day reminiscent of Genesis in a vulnerable song and I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You is practically a Stevie Wonder track hands down. As said, its golden. The duo forge timely songs ripe with vivid instrumentation and holding song structures to make it work wonderfully. The variety is plentiful, dipping into emotional ballads, flushes of early Electronica synths, plenty of Progressive Rock cliches and the audacity to experiment boldly. The song Total Eclipse uses a choir of haunted soul voices to cascade with unease through nail biting tensions as it plunges into fiery depths.
Perhaps suggested by its variety, the structure is loose, moving through drastic shifts in tone that seem effortless with the aid of seamless transitions, pivoting the instruments between songs with organic handover passageways. It ends with Boules, a bonus track of sorts rocking a "phat" baseline with a tight reflexive drum loop and accompaniment of strange noise oddities. It always struck me as a Hip Hop beat in ways, further suggesting the duo had a finger on the pulse with the splash of current sounds the record embodies, although Hip Hop might be a bit of a stretch with the New York scene at its absolute infancy in this point in time.
One thing that stains the stunning music is its theme. I Robot attempts to engage with the concept of artificial intelligence from a heavily dated perspective. Compared to the current discussions around AI and its partial implementation through algorithms and machine learning, everything pertaining to the concept just seems out of step, however the vocal efforts of the band it comes through are wonderful. Barely a crease to be found beyond its timely blemish. Lastly, I'll end on a musing note. These two never found commercial success in their home town, shipping most their records in Germany, USA and Canada. Its something I find rather curious given how British acts tend to be well known here but the Alan Parsons Project has sadly faded from focus since their retirement over two decades ago.
Rating: 9/10